Connecting the Dots and Thinking Outside the Box
By:  Alton Maddox, AmNews

Today, most Blacks in the United States are like parrots. We are only able to verbalize concepts. We lack the ability to understand and apply them. This has resulted from being dumbed down. We have lost the ability to understand the keys to critical thinking.

The recent process of officially dumbing down Blacks in the tri-state area started with Beth Galinsky and Minoo Southgate. Their attacks on Black radio and the Slave Theater were relentless. They have fled the scene, but their fingerprints are all over our minds.They ushered in controlled censorship. “Big Brother” controls the flow of information in the Black community.

This country had to assassinate Malcolm X and Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. and it had to imprison Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. Louis Clayton Jones had to be “disbarred” and Amos Wilson had to be silenced. Rev. Jeremiah Wright had to be defrocked in a bill of attainder. Their critical analyses would militate against the dumbing down of a downtrodden people.

Before I was removed from the legal profession in 1990, the New York Post ran editorials demanding that I be disbarred. They argued that if I were left unchecked to do my thing, other Black attorneys would attempt to emulate me. Most Blacks still believe that my conflict with New York is personal. Whites know better. History guides them.

We have no knowledge of legal history. If we did, we would have known that my disbarment was connected to the systematic denial of legal representation for Blacks in New York since 1827. Political representation and legal representation are novel concepts for our collective psyches.

The first Black lawyer in New York was George Boyer Vashon in 1848. He had to flee to Haiti because of racism. New York disbarred Aaron Alpeoria Bradley in the 1850s.He was a fierce, legal advocate for Blacks. Thomas McCants Stewart had to leave New York after causing the integration of the public school system in Brooklyn. He fled to Hawaii before its statehood.

It was no accident, for example, that every Black lawyer associated with the “Central Park 6,”including Colin Moore, Robert Burns and myself were disbarred. Joseph Mack was suspended. His appearance in the case was ephemeral. The lesson was simple. No Black lawyer should be vigorously defending a Black defendant for allegedly raping a white woman.

Whites understand that legal representation is a condition precedent to political representation. Blacks have been unable to make this connection. Thus, we are mired in plantation politics. White lawyers of the Democratic Party represent our selected officials.

If George W. Bush had not been able to enjoy legal representation in Bush v. Gore, he would have never become a public tenant in the District of Columbia in 2001. Lawyers make the last arguments in political campaigns and judges get the last word.

White members of the New York Legislature initiated the disciplinary complaint against me while Black legislators, including then-State Sen. David Paterson, stood on the sidelines. Only aggrieved clients usually have standing to initiate a disciplinary complaint against an attorney. The extrajudicial process employed to indefinitely suspend me was unprecedented.

My appearance in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on August 8 will be on behalf of every person of African ancestry in New York for the past 400 years. We have never enjoyed legal nor political representation in New York. Our political powerlessness, for example, enabled the British to steal our ancestor’s land in Lower Manhattan during the 17th century.

This predicament prompted Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm to write in the first editorial in Freedom’s Journal in 1827: “We wish to plead our own cause.Too long have others spoken for us.” On July 4,1827,Blacks in New York were fully emancipated, but not free. Two hundred years later, we are still fully emancipated, but not free.

It has been difficult to prosecute this civil rights action in a hostile judiciary. Four judges were assigned to the case at different times in Brooklyn Federal Court. Even a former law partner of former State Attorney General Robert Abrams was assigned to the case. Only one Democratic appointee to the Brooklyn Federal Court was assigned to hear the case.She recused herself.

I perfected and filed an appellate brief and joint appendix in July 2007. It has taken more than a year for this case to be calendared. Usually, an attorney for a party on appeal is given 15 minutes to make an oral argument. The time for my oral argument has been restricted to five minutes.

This time restriction is usually given to Black inmates who have lost most of their civil rights at the prison gate.As Malcolm X said, “We are still in prison.” Prisoners’ rights define our plight. Human rights are illusory rights for persons of African ancestry.

This attempt to muzzle me is not only a violation of equal protection, but it is also a violation of due process of law. Every litigant should be entitled to notice and an opportunity to be heard. Five minutes amount to a gag order, and it is designed to make sure that the “cat”does not flee the bag. The Brawley “hoax” must still be shrouded in secrecy.

In the meantime, Gov. David Paterson refuses to disclose the Brawley file, including the minutes of the bogus grand jury investigation. Obviously, Paterson has chosen to join a relay team consisting of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Abrams. Even the Pentagon Papers were publicized during the Nixon administration.

The Brawley case is reminiscent of Celia, a slave. At her trial for murdering her slave owner, Celia unsuccessfully argued self-defense. He had repeatedly raped her. She had as much success in Missouri as John White had in Suffolk County, N.Y., 150 years later. She was hanged. Self-defense is not available for Blacks to exercise against whites.

Brawley is also reminiscent of the Mary Turner ordeal. Turner was lynched for threatening to complain to federal authorities about a white mob lynching her husband in Georgia. Nearly 100 years later, federal courts are still unavailable for Blacks to vindicate the denial of their civil rights. In 2008, given the Slaughterhouse Cases, Blacks still have no national citizenship rights.

Thus, the Sean Bell case will never see the light of day in a federal criminal prosecution. Moreover, Tawana Brawley is the barometer and foundation for Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell. The common thread is police terrorism and Black co-optation.

Law enforcement agents were involved in all of these cases. Former U.S.Attorney Rudolph Giuliani blocked Brawley. Today, Giuliani rules the roost in the U.S. Justice Department. Earlier, Bush 43 had attempted to deliver the Department of Homeland Security to him. Politics equals power sharing.

Similarly, some of the same persons who were advocates in Diallo and Bell were also advocates in Brawley. This is why Diallo and Bell came up empty. If the Establishment is able to co-opt a spokesperson in Brawley, it stands to reason that the Establishment will also be able to co-opt any such advocate in Diallo and Bell. The marchers in “Shopping for Justice” were unable to connect the dots.

August 6—UAM’s weekly forum at 7:30 p.m.at Elks Plaza, 1068 Harriet Tubman Avenue (Fulton Street) near Classon Avenue in Brooklyn. Take the “C” train to Franklin Avenue. Last date for UAM’s weekly forum in August 2008. United African Movement will be engaged in a planning retreat to shore up the only weekly, Black political assembly in New York.

August 8—Oral argument in Maddox v. Prudenti et. al. is scheduled in the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 500 Pearl Street in Manhattan at 9:30 a.m.

For further information on all events, call United African Movement at (718) 834-9034.

See: www.reinstatealtonmaddox.net for “Motion and Memorandum of Law in Maddox v. Prudenti et. al.,” “Legal and Life Experiences of Alton H. Maddox, Jr.,” “The Politics of Oil,” “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms,” “Stand with Councilman Barron,” “Police Pressures Hynes for Convictions,” “Community Control of the NYPD” and “U.S. Pardon for Marcus Garvey?”